Thread: A compendium of hones and their grits

Originally Posted by bjrn

Cutting speed is how fast metal is removed, isn't it? Anyway, since there have been no replies to my averages idea I threw together something quick, you can check it out here.

I filled in the grits for the Nortons and DMTs and also speed and hardness for the Nortons. You can't fill in any data for the Nortons as they are the baseline data everything else relies on.

Any feedback at all would be appriciated.

I just put in some values for the Spydercos. Your table shows my input values /2. It seems to compute the median of the input value and the 0 that has been there before. This doesn't seem correct. Instead of 0 as a start value, it should be blank.

Yeah, I'll remove the 0s. It's all put together quickly, and I wanted to display all hones, even ones without ratings, in the table and the way the SQL query fetches the data it wouldn't if they were blank, and the easiest way to fix it was to add 0s into the database.


I guess I should add some little form for people to add more hones as well, or something along those lines.

Originally Posted by bjrn

Okay, I have an idea and want some thoughts. I was thinking we could try to apply the wisom of crowds idea here. For you who haven't heard of this, the idea is that individual guesses as to something combined will be more accurate than any of the specific guesses. One story that is often cited is that of Francis Galton, who observed a game at a county fair. People had to guess the weight of an ox, and whoever got closest (or had it spot on, something like that) would win. Galton kept track of the guesses and the average of all the guesses was within a pound of the ox's true weight, and also closer than any of the separate estimates made by cattle experts.


Anyway, I thought I could cobble together a webpage of sorts which would allow data entry, and show average grit scores. Same for cutting speed and hardness. What do you guys think? I wouldn't want to do it without Paul's OK though, I wouldn't want to steal away anything

The Wisdom of Crowds... I'm inclined to believe it can be a powerful thing, but there are a few caveats.
When people have to guess the weight of an ox, they all use the same reference scale: they all agree on how much a pound is and they all have a fairly accurate idea of the concept "pound" in their minds.
Most hone owners don't have that referencing scale in their mind when it comes to grit size and even less when it comes to cutting speed.
Cutting speed, for that matter, should be a relative concept.
Let's think about sandpaper for a while. Removing a scratch out of a piece of wood might take a minute with grit 40. It could take all day with grit 240. The same theory applies to hones, of course.
In that light, I believe a real slow low grit hone still will remove metal many times faster than a real fast high grit hone.
Within a honer's mind there will even be cross-contamination between coarseness and speed of a particular hone. Some people might rate a fine hone slightly coarser if it cuts fast enough, other might rate that same hone finer and faster.
My Belgian Blue, which is considered a rather slow cutter, still cuts much faster than my coticule, which is considered a fast cutter, but of course both cut in a different grit-league, which makes them very difficult to compare.
I think that lack of common reference will be the weak point in the wisdom of crowds approach on this matter.
Maybe if you were to develop some form of standardized test that people could use to rate their hones, before they contribute their findings on a joined spreadsheet, it could make a big difference in the final results of your effort. Honing a flat of 1/10" on the rim a certain coin and counting the strokes it takes could be an idea.

Just some thoughts,

Bart.

Originally Posted by Bart

In that light, I believe a real slow low grit hone still will remove metal many times faster than a real fast high grit hone.

Well, that was my thought as well, which is why there are two separate fields for grit and speed. The speed is how fast metal is removed, the grit is how coarse the resulting edge is.

But I admit that it may very well turn out to be completely useless, but we won't know until we get some more data.

May I suggest limiting the ratings of the hardness and cutting speed to like 0-10 or 0- 20? With 0 being the fastest (diamond) and hardest (also diamond, arkansas close in tow).

With no end point to the scale, it makes for a very confusing range. maybe a drop down list for these values would ease things.

Sound good to anyone, or other suggestions?

The problem is that I (and I guess most people) don't know what the softest hone is, and how soft it is in relation to the Nortons or DMTs. The same goes for speed, I don't know what the fastest or slowest is and how much faster or slower they are.

Right now the hardness and speed have fixed scales, just like temperature for instance.

Okay, so why no interest? I'm sure there are a number of people with views on grits and speeds of various hones around here. Is the whole premise flawed? Is there something wrong with the website? Something else?